Rejoinder to Benny Morris

Abstract

In Myths, Old and New (hereafter: Myths), published in the last issue of the Journal, * I discussed Benny Morris's central thesis that the Arab refugee problem was born of war, not by design. I suggested that Morris's own evidence points to the conclusion that Palestine's Arabs were expelled systematically and with premeditation. Morris's Response to Finkelstein and Masalha (hereafter: Response), printed in the same issue (pp. 98-114), demonstrates that my criticism was warranted, indeed, understated. I will use this space to address each of the objections Morris raises. For the most part, I will not clutter my rejoinder with lengthy quotations, limiting myself instead to page references, so that readers may compare the cited passages with Morris. I will use the framework of my original article to organize the rejoinder, leaving to the end miscellaneous points. Finally, inasmuch as Morris's views in his response diverge radically from what he has written before, I will, for convenience's sake, use the rhetorical device of the old Morris and the new Morris, the former referring to Morris's two volumes and sundry articles, and the latter to his revisionism in the Journal of Palestine Studies. This distinction will, I think, clarify many of the points at issue between us. My critique was basically divided into two parts, the first dealing with the Palestinian flight before May 1948 and the second with the Palestinian flight after May. In the first part, I disputed Morris on three central points, arguing, first, that his periodization obscured more than it enlightened, second, that the Arab exodus resulted from a general, predetermined Zionist policy and, third, that the Arab exodus did not come as a shock to the Zionist wartime